MEMOTUMCELLMACH Metallodrugs to Modulate Tumour Cell Machinery

PI: Dr. Ana M. Pizarro

Funding : FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG no. 631396

Duration: 2015 - 2018

The past decade has seen substantial advances in our understanding of cancer molecular biology and the technologies vailable to study it, emphasising the importance of the multiple molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis in cancer research. Effective single molecular targets therapies are generally not sufficient to elicit durable clinical responses and the development of drug resistance is an increasing problem. Consideration of only a single drug–target interaction in vivo has proven to be overly simplistic. The ultimate goal of this proposal is to generate multi-targeting metallodrugs whose mechanism of action is understood and whose targets are identified. These metallomedicines will exploit the extraordinary features of transition metal complexes, in particular the capability for in tumour activation, and the possibility of being loaded into nanocarriers, conferring control on the drug reactivity, and thus minimising undesired side effects, often responsible for drug failure. Our approach intends to modulate and deconvolute the technology behind the tumour cell machinery at the subcellular level, i.e., at the nanoscale